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Description

"The world water problems are a due to bad governance, not to physical water scarcity."

This book is inspired by this statement and explores whether it holds in a specific country, Spain, where climatic conditions – Spain is one of the most arid countries of the European Union - would fully justify saying that water problems are due to physical water scarcity. The metrification of water uses and their monetary value is a first important step in understanding how reallocation of water among users could help mitigating many of current water problems in Spain. However, water reallocation among users or from users to nature is far from simple. Initiatives portrayed as the solution to the water governance ‘jigsaw’ – e.g. water trade, improved water use efficiency, users collective action, public participation – are not free of difficulties and shortcomings. The book explores the growing need for maintaining Spain’s natural capital and the human component of water governance – people’s needs, wishes, (vested) interests, aspirations – that often determine the result of decisions and, sometimes, lead water management to a deadlock. This book takes a step forward in showing a more complex - and also closer to reality - picture of water governance in Spain.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

PART 1: Political framework and institutions

2 The concept of water and food security in Spain

3 Water planning and management after the EU Water Framework Directive

4 Institutional reform in Spain to address water challenges

PART 2: Metrification of water uses

5 Towards an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)

6 Overview of the extended water footprint in Spain: The importance of agricultural water consumption in the Spanish economy

7 An overview of groundwater resources in Spain

8 The extended water footprint of the Guadalquivir basin

9 The extended water footprint of the Guadiana river basin

10 Lessons learnt from analyses of the water footprint of tomatoes and olive oil in Spain.

PART 3: Looking at the environment and sector uses

11 Linking land management to water planning: Estimating the water consumption of Spanish forests

12 The challenges of agricultural diffuse pollution

13 Urban and industrial water use challenges

14 Challenges and opportunities related to the Spanish water-energy nexus

15 Considerations on climate variability and change in Spain

PART 4: Possible mechanisms and enabling conditions

16 Water trading in Spain

17 Public participation and transparency in water management

18 Taming the groundwater chaos the modernization of irrigation systems

PART 5: Case studies

20 Tablas de Daimiel National Park and groundwater conflicts

21 Intensively irrigated agriculture in the north-west of Doñana

22 The Canary Islands

About the Editors

Lucia De Stefano is a research fellow at the Water Observatory of the Botín Foundation, and Associate Professor at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), where she teaches hydrology and hydrogeology. Her previous position was as a research assistant at Oregon State University, USA, working on global studies on water conflicts and resilience to climate-change-induced water variability, and regional water governance benchmarking in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Lucia has worked a policy officer for WWF, the international environmental NGO and as a water management specialist in the private sector.

A hydrogeologist by training, she obtained her advanced degree in Geological Sciences from the University of Pavia (Italy), and holds a PhD on evaluation of water policies from Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. She received formal training in water conflict management and negotiation at Oregon State University, USA; and UNESCO-IHE in Delft, the Netherlands. Her main fields of interest are policy evaluation, water planning, groundwater management and the assessment of good governance attributes.

Prof. M. Ramón Llamas is Emeritus Professor of Hydrogeology at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Since 1986 he is a Fellow of Spain’s Royal Academy of Sciences. He is also Fellow of the European Academy of Science and Arts (2005). He is author or co-author of nearly 100 books or monographs and almost 400 scientific papers. He has received the Cannes International Great Prize for Water in 2006 and is a Member of the French Academie de l’Eau (2006). He was President of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) from 1984 to 1989. In 1992 he was appointed Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of the United Kingdom. He has been coordinator of the UNESCO Working Group on the Ethics of the Use of Freshwater Resources (1998–1999) and has been member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the International NGO Action Against Hunger (1999–2004). Since 1998 he is Director of the Water Observatory of the Botín Foundation.